In message <20010313221018.B13665@pyy.jmp.fi>, Jukka Marin writes:

>
>> Updating them at boot (before the system becomes active) is the easy way
>> to get good numbers - it could be recoded otherwise, but has never been
>> a feature in demand, as far as I can recall.
>
>I see.  So, there's no easy solution..  What does the quota file contain,
>then, if all the information must be gathered again every reboot?

It counts how many files and how many disk blocks are used by each
user on each file system.  This information is tracked in real-time, 
but it's recreated each reboot.  In theory, I suspect that a file 
system that was shut down cleanly doesn't need a quotacheck, but it's 
been ~15 years since I ran a system that relied on quotas, and we all 
know about the difference between theory and practice....

		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb